Designed as a temporary canopy for the DesCours festival, an annual weeklong celebration of design sponsored by AIA New Orleans, Hover is a luminous canopy featuring both LEDs and photovoltaic cells that power them. Höweler + Yoon designed Hover—an entirely off-the-grid construction —as a kit of parts that is easily scaled up or down to adapt to a variety of venues and increase the potential for future installations. Coated nylon ripstop fabric is stretched and framed into a form derived from a cell in the human body.
Each unit is rimmed at the top with flexible photovoltaic cells that generate enough energy to power a rope of LEDs placed in the fabric around the base. These fabric units were manufactured in several sizes, carefully measured to allow for replicable multicell groupings that can be rotated and fit together to form the layout of the complete installation. The installation reacts directly to the surrounding environment, emitting more light on sunny days and less on cloudy days, a direct effect of the amount of energy absorbed and generated by the PV cells.
Meejin Yoon/ MY Studio
